Onyx seeks products to boost pipeline: CEO

By Toni Clarke

BOSTON (Reuters) - Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc (ONXX.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), which only has one drug on the market, is keen to acquire more, but as a small biotechnology company it faces a challenge, since competition from big pharmaceuticals companies to find and license promising experimental products is fierce.

Onyx's drug Nexavar, which it sells in partnership with German drugmaker Bayer AG (BAYG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), is approved to treat kidney cancer. It is also awaiting approval in the United States to treat liver cancer.

Next year the companies are expected to report results of clinical trials of Nexavar in lung cancer, and the drug is also being developed for breast and other cancers.

Even so, Nexavar won't be enough to support the company indefinitely, especially as rival drugs are in the works.

"There is no example of a sustainable company with one product," said Hollings Renton, Onyx's chief executive, at the Reuters Health Summit in New York. "Our strategy over time is, as we have more flexibility, to think about creating a pipeline via licensing or other activities."

That won't be easy. Pharmaceutical companies, which face shortages in their own pipelines of experimental products, are snapping up, and paying top dollar for, promising products.

Onyx can't outspend big pharmaceuticals companies, but as sales and optimism over Nexavar increase, so has the company's market value, which now stands at $3.2 billion.

"Our market capitalization is at a level where it is more reasonable to think about doing something with our stock," Renton said.

Onyx's shares have risen dramatically to $59.72 this year from $10.98.

Renton said that in lieu of hard cash, Onyx is presenting itself to potential partners as one with a proven track record in marketing an oncology product and one without a lot of products that would take attention away from any new one coming into the pipeline.

"We have more flexibility -- not to outbid the big guys, but at least be at the table," Renton said.

In the meantime, he said, "we think of Nexavar as a pipeline in and of itself."

(For summit blog: summitnotebook.reuters.com/)

(Additional reporting by Lisa Baertlein in New York)